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Homemade Present for Baby Shower Leads to Start of Publishing Business

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. Ann Butenas business idea was born of a mothers practicality.

In April the mother of three created a medical and dental records format on her computer, put the information into a three-ring binder and wrapped it up for a friends baby shower.

The women at the shower liked the book so much that Butenas decided to improve it and market it. By July she had been on local television shows, appeared in local magazines and had 500 of her products in area bookstores, including Borders Books-Music-Café.

Now she has formed a publishing company called ANZ Publications, an acronym referring to her three boys: Alec, Noah and Zachary.

Butenas, who holds a masters degree in business administration from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, said she did things outside the norm in getting her product to market.

"I winged it," she said. "After I was on the cover of College Boulevard News, I called Borders up and asked them if they had a copy of the magazine. When the woman said yes, I said, Well, thats me on the front, and Id like to talk to you about my book."

Butenas dedicated the book to her deceased father, a Kansas City pulmonary physician. She followed the adage that you should write about what you know.

"Parents go to the doctors office more often than the grocery store," she said, holding a 16 month-old son on her hip while her 3- and 4-year-olds circulated around her dining table.

She saw a need for organizing childrens medical records - something to keep track of it all for the immediate future and beyond, even into adulthood.

"When kids go off to school or camp, you need to fill out forms," Butenas said. "There is a lot of stuff to remember."

The book sells for $24.95 at most stores. It allows for information on immunizations, well-child exams, illnesses, medicines, radiology, allergies, dental history, insurance and special medical conditions. There are also forms for thumbprints and medical releases.

It provides pocket sheets for the important information that doctors and hospitals give parents. Its indexed and has pertinent illustrations on the section dividers.

"If my mother or a sitter comes to stay and there is an emergency, she will have this at her fingertips," Butenas said. "The book does the thinking for you in an emergency. This could save lives."

Butenas now is aiming for placement in a national health-care products catalog. She said she hoped that hospitals nationwide would carry her binder in their gift shops or add it to the bags of presents they give to new mothers.

She is looking into direct mailing, focusing on pregnant women.

In the living room of her Overland Park home are white boxes from S&S Printing in Oak Grove, each holding copies of one of the books 65 pages.

They are placed side by side in orderly fashion, ready for Butenas and her husband, Ed, a Hallmark employee for 23 years, to collate in their spare time.

"We do laps around the room," said Butenas.

The bulk of her business work is done between 4:30 and 7 a.m., and after 10 p.m., when the children are asleep.

"Right now, I am my own PR person, publicist, distributor - almost everything," she said. "But Ive realized that I really need to outsource some of this work to enhance the product and to distribute and mail it."

Butenas is looking to Corporate Document Services in Lenexa to help her iron out some of those problems. Because she was once a paralegal, she knew to hire an intellectual properties lawyer and is in the copyright process.

Now that she is in the public eye, she finds that salespeople, distributors and new-product developers are calling her.

Butenas has plenty more ideas, once the ball is rolling on this project - her goal is to sell 1,000 units a month by next year.

She'd like to create a medical records manual for seniors, and shes begun a series of 10 childrens books called "In My Dreams." The first one, Grasshoppers and Elephants, is on the computer and waiting for an illustrator.

She compiles a journal every day on the computer about her children and has a library of videos to complement the notes. With these resources she plans a book called Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy.

Butenas says she wants to get more of her own products to market and establish her business away from home before she takes on others works.

"I want to establish my own credibility first," she said.

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